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Now that we've covered product, layout, displays, and signage, it's time to get down to business. Literally. After you have made items to sell and put price tags on them you need to start preparing yourself to sell your handmade goods. It is really important to be well prepared for transacting business-if you are not well organized, customers might get frustrated, you may end up with a few people waiting to pay, and you will undoubtedly become frazzled, which is no fun.

One or two weeks before the show, gather everything you need to do business and ring up transactions. Pens, calculators, invoice/receipt books, and shopping bags are must haves. Make a bank run to get change - think about your price points and plan your change based on that. If you take credit card payments via square or any other device or app, make sure they are in working order and that you remember passwords for apps. Another thing we do is create a cheat sheet of all of out items pricing with tax. At the bottom we have every price point from $1-$100 with tax added for a quick reference guide.

In addition to the bare minimum of receipt books, etc. you want to make sure that anything you plan to use to package or wrap items you have on hand as well (tissue paper, twine, gift boxes). Thinking back to your booth layout, make sure that all of these items along with shopping bags are laid out in a way that will make it fast and efficient to wrap or package items. Make knitted scarves and plan to drop them in shopping bags? Easy peasy. Make ceramic dishes and need to wrap them individually and them box them up? Plan to make some space for that and keep all materials handy. Plastic Rubbermaid drawers under a table can make for a quick wrapping station. If you make jewelry, you will want to be sure to have small boxes or pouches to protect purchases. It is also a really good idea to have boxes handy during the holiday season if people ask for them. I know it is an extra expense, but it is also part of the handmade shopping experience to have items nicely packaged. Uline is a great resource for packaging supplies.

Most craft show vendors have adopted the Square and other credit card payment methods, but it is always good to be prepared to take payments the old fashioned way (card imprint and paper receipt). Just because you have a square and the phone app doesn't mean you are guaranteed good cell signals or wifi. We have totally been to places that were the dead zone for cell phones, and with 50+ vendors trying to tap into the free wifi, forget it...nothing was working. This is when that receipt book will be extra handy, make an imprint either rubbing the card with a pen under the carbon copies (anyone who has ever worked in retail knows the drill) or write it down. Be SURE to destroy the card numbers asap after you are able to run the payment, and black out the # on the guests receipt for safety too. This is also where cash will come in handy, if your are not sure you have enough, bring more-you can always redeposit it into the bank after the show. Even if all of your items are under $10, be prepared to make change for someone who pays with a $100 bill. You know that person (can you tell we used to work retail!?) the one who comes first thing in the morning straight from the bank with a crisp hundred and you have to make $92 in change and they wipe out all your $20's...? Be prepared for that person :)

About three weeks
before the show, plan your booth space. Decide what your table layout will be,
how your displays will be set up and where chairs and product storage will go
but still be easily accessible. Tape off the booth space on the floor or
driveway and be sure everything fits. Once you have a "floor plan,"
decide how your goods will be displayed.

It is important to do this because often you only have an hour or two to unload and set up for a show. Depending on your product unloading could take you 30 mins or more. Have to set up a tent? Add 10-15 min for that...tables? 5 more. That is 50 of your time right there, give or take 10 min based on the product you make. So it's imperative that you plan ahead on set up or you will either be unprepared or rushing right before the show starts.

What should you do in this dry run setup? Tape off on the floor or driveway (with painters tape) your exact booth space. Bonus points for setting up your tent in your driveway and working with that (and double checking that your tent is in order and you have all your parts and pieces).

Once you have your booth space marked off or tent set up you should consider the following:

How many tables will you need and what should their layout be-keep in mind you should leave room around the tables so you can enter and exit your booth space

Where and how will my displays be set up

Will my displays hold my product?

Can I see over and work around my displays?

Did I leave work space for myself to write receipts, wrap or package purchases, put my soda?

Try a couple different layouts. You may think you have laid out the best option, but try a few more anyways. You never know what you will come up with and it is a good exercise to do, just in case when you arrive at the show your booth space or location changes. It pays to be prepared with a few options and be flexible.Missed Part 1.1? Find it here:

Last week I shared the link of part one on how to prep for a
craft show that I wrote for Etsy Dallas. As promised, I wanted to delve in a
little deeper into some of these topics for you to really create a
comprehensive resource for newcomers. We were once new too, and have pictures
of the hot mess we were at our first show to prove it! Thanks to other seasoned
crafters we found our way and now can happily pay that advice forward.

First and
foremost you need product – and plenty of it. You should aim to still have a
relatively full display toward the end of the show. If your booth looks empty,
you might get passed by. Depending on your price points, you should expect to
sell 1/4 to 1/3 of the inventory you bring. The best way to be prepared is to
make a production schedule and try to stick to it. Then bring everything to the
show, even if you aren't sure you will sell it.

There are many formulas for how
to arrive at how much to make and bring to a craft show and I will cover more
of them here. Some things to keep in mind for this is what kind of product you
sell, your price points, and how much it takes to fill your display table.
Since a lot of these formulas are in terms of dollars you will need to convert
that to units based on what you make. We make soap, and at an average retail of
$4-$5 to make $100 I would need to sell at least 20 bars. But if you sell $50
necklaces, you only need to sell two to make that same $100 and most likely
will not need to make nearly as much inventory in units to cover your sales.

The next thing to consider is
how much it takes to fill your display table or booth. You want your display to
still look full at the end of the show (between 75-80% full at least). If your
booth looks too empty shoppers may pass you up thinking that you have sold out
of everything and you can miss a lot of sales this way. For example,
for our soap, it takes approx 200 bars of soap to fill our table, so if
based on the formulas below I expect to sell 250 bars, I need to make about 450
in total.Never.Look.Empty.

Here are a few formulas that
you can use to give you an idea of how much you should make. I will use the
same soap (at $5, 200 for display) and necklace (at $50, 50 for display) for
these examples.

Option 1: 7x-10x your booth fee

With 10x the booth fee being
your high side target, and 7x what you will more realistically sell.

Booth Fee $100

10x$100=$1000

for $5 soap that is 200 bars to
sell + 200 bars for display=400 total

for $50 jewelry that is 20 to
sell + 50 to display=70 total

7x$100=$700

for $5 soap that is 140 bars to
sell + 200 bars for display=340 total

for $50 jewelry that is 14 to
sell + 50 to display=64 total

Option 2:% of attendance

If the show you are doing gives
you an annual attendance rate (assuming they are an established show) you can
use this number as a guideline to multiply by your average transaction. The
lower the price point the higher the rate. For under $10 a 3% rate of purchases
per attendees is good-that is 1 of every 100 people. For higher price points
this rate may be 1% or less if your price point is really high.

As we stated before expect to
sell between 14 (25%) and 1/3 (33%) of what you bring. This approach is kind of
a backwards approach to what you will sell. We have found you sell between
25-33% of the merch you bring. Want to sell $1000? Then you need to bring at
least $3000 in inventory ($1000/0.33) which is 600 bars of soap at 33% (200 for
display + 400 to sell).

Keep in mind that the cheaper
the booth fee the lower the attendance usually is. It costs time, money, and
effort to bring people into a show, so if the fee is low and there isn't an
estimated attendance expect a low number and base inventory off of that.

Also consider the type of
audience that is being targeted for the event. Does the target audience for the
show match up to your target customer in terms of the type of product you are
selling and your price points? Are you selling fine art for $400 at a show
targeted to college age audience? It may not go over well.Always remember at the bare minimum you should sell enough to cover your booth fee + the time you would pay your self for the hours you worked at the show x 2.

A lot of this comes from
experience so it is important to keep track of how much you brought and how
much you sell, in dollars and units (and by item type) if possible. The more
detailed information you have the better you can use that information to help
you prepare next time!